Part 13
Poor, poor Mr Burlingham! It will be remembered that Madame Steinheil described the assassins of her husband and mother as three men in black robes, and a red-headed woman. Well, just because Mr Burlingham had hired a black robe from a costumier’s for a fancy-dress ball a few nights before the murder, he was suspected, shadowed and worried by the detective police. One day the police stationed Madame Steinheil outside his door, and when he sauntered out and walked off, the “Tragic Widow” exclaimed: “Yes, that is one of the assassins. I recognise him by his red beard.” But as on the night of the murder Mr Burlingham was far away in Switzerland with two friends on a walking-tour, he had no difficulty in establishing a decisive _alibi_. Nevertheless, Mr Burlingham became notorious. His photographs appeared in the newspapers. He was followed here, there and everywhere by Yellow Reporters: who described him as the “enigmatic Burlingham,” and the “sinister Burlingham”—and yet Mr Burlingham, with his light red beard, gentle green eyes, low voice and kindly expression is, in reality, the simplest and mildest-looking mortal that ever breathed. What humiliations, what indignities, nevertheless, had Mr Burlingham to endure! His landlord gave him notice, his tradespeople ceased calling for orders; when out walking in the neighbourhood he inhabited, concierges exclaimed: “There goes the famous Burlingham,” while little boys cried: “Here comes the sinister Burlingham.” Once, after calling on a friend who was out, he left his name with the concierge—and the concierge, panic-stricken, fled her lodge, and, rushing into the next house, breathlessly told her neighbour that she had seen the “terrible Burlingham.” In fact, an intolerable time of it for mild, simple Mr Burlingham.
“I have narrowly escaped the guillotine,” were his first words to the judge; and the Court laughed. The American should have engaged an interpreter: his French and his accent were deplorable. “This Steinheil affair is not clear,” he continued, naïvely, and everyone shook with delight. “I am very sorry you have been so badly treated,” said M. de Valles, “but you fell under suspicion because you had eccentric habits, and mixed with eccentric people.” M. de Valles’ idea of “eccentric” habits and “eccentric” people was in itself eccentric. For Mr Burlingham’s friends and associates during his sojourn in Paris have been painters, sculptors, and journalists of talent and honourable standing. As for his habits, they have been those of a firm believer in the “simple life.” Sandals for Mr Burlingham; no hat; terrific walking-tours. Then a diet of rice, grapes and nuts. (In the buffet of the Law Courts Mr Burlingham, when invited to take a “drink,” ordered grapes: he consumed I don’t know how many bunches a day, to the stupefaction of the waiters and customers.) Well, after having received apologies from the judge, Mr Burlingham received those of counsel for the defence and the prosecution. “Excuses are scarcely enough,” replied the witness; “I should like to say something about the French judicial system.” At which, M. de Valles, rapping his paper-cutter, sternly requested simple, unfortunate Mr Burlingham to “retire.”
Murmurs, exclamations, excitement in court when M. Marcel Hutin, of the _Echo de Paris_, and MM. Labruyère and Barby, of the _Matin_—the three journalists who bullied and “tortured” Madame Steinheil in the Impasse Ronsin Villa on the night previous to her arrest—strode up to the short wooden bar that takes the place, in France, of a witness-box.
No confusion, no shame about them; and yet their conduct in the drawing-room of the Steinheil villa twelve months ago was despicable. Calmly they admitted having advised the “Tragic Widow” to “tell a new story,” as no one in Paris believed in her account of how the double crime had been committed. They also admitted having lied to the wretched woman, when they had told her that the villa was surrounded by a hostile mob, “come there to lynch her.” Madame Steinheil, they continued, was exhausted, out of her mind. She called for strychnine, with which to poison herself. Downstairs in the kitchen the cook, Mariette Wolff, was discovered on her knees, striving to cut open the tube of the gas-stove—to asphyxiate herself. The cook then produced a revolver, and cried: “Here is the only means of salvation.” Later on, tea was served in the drawing-room. M. Marcel Hutin and his two colleagues continued to browbeat Madame Steinheil. One of the Yellow Reporters cried: “I shall not leave this house until I know the truth.” Mariette Wolff entered the drawing-room and tried to soothe her mistress. And——
“So you tortured Madame Steinheil in her drawing-room. You drank her tea. You were her guests, she was your hostess,” interrupted M. de Valles, scathingly, indignantly. The “Tragic Widow,” leaning forward on the ledge of the dock, looked gratefully, thankfully, at the judge. The three Yellow Reporters strode out of court, each of them provoking angry exclamations from the barristers as they importantly passed by.
And then, the cook—Mariette Wolff, who had been in Madame Steinheil’s service for over twenty years; and who, according to the Yellow Press, “possessed all the secrets of the palpitating Steinheil Mystery.” Henri Rochefort, M. Arthur Meyer (director of the _Gaulois_, very Jewish in appearance, but a strong Anti-Semite and an ardent Catholic in politics), Madame Séverine (the famous woman journalist), four very charming lady barristers, all their male confrères—everyone, in fact, sprang up excitedly when Mariette made her long-expected appearance. She has since been described as a peasant out of one of Zola’s novels, and as “the double of Balzac’s fiendish Cousine Bette.” She has also been termed “a fury,” and “a rat” and “a monster.” For my part, when first I saw her through the open door of the witness-room, sipping a steaming grog and chatting and laughing with her son Alexandre, I summed her up as the French double of a typical English charwoman. She was wearing a battered black bonnet and a seedy black dress, and came to me more as a Dickensonian than a Zolaesque or a Balzacien character. But Mariette, happily drinking grog, and Mariette, facing a jury and judge, are two very different persons. In court, Madame Steinheil’s ex-cook was defiant, vindictive, violent. As she defended her former mistress, her beady, black eyes flashed, her chin and nose almost met—her yellow, knotted hand beat the air. Yes, she was a “fury”; yes—to use the French journalist’s pet epithet—she looked “sinister.” And, oh dear me, her abuse of the Yellow Reporters! Mariette’s crude language cannot be reproduced here. It became particularly strong when she related how she had ordered MM. Hutin, Barby and Labruyère out of the Impasse Ronsin Villa. It grew even stronger when she denied their allegations that she intended first of all to asphyxiate herself, and then to blow out her brains. She denied everything. “My mistress is innocent,” she cried. “She accused my son Alexandre of being a murderer, but it was those —— journalists who made her do that, and I forgive her: and so does Alexandre.” True, Alexandre Wolff, a horse-dealer’s assistant, with huge red hands and a neck like a bullock’s, told M. de Valles he bore Madame Steinheil “no grudge.” And the “Tragic Widow,” leaning forward, murmured melodiously: “Thank you, Alexandre.”
Full of incoherencies, contradictions, was the evidence of Remy Couillard, the late M. Steinheil’s valet, into whose pocket-book the “Tragic Widow” had placed the incriminating pearl. “I bear her no grudge,” blurted out the young man. “I beg your pardon, Remy,” said Madame Steinheil, always melodiously, when the valet (attired, since he was accomplishing his “military service,” in a cavalry uniform) withdrew. But, a moment later, she fell back in her chair, closed her eyes; and the black-gloved hands in her lap twitched convulsively, madly.
M. Borderel had stepped forward to give evidence: M. Borderel, the lover Madame Steinheil had declared twelve months ago to the examining magistrate to be the one and only man she had ever truly loved.
A hush in court as the middle-aged, red-eyed, broken-down widower from the beautiful country of the Ardennes, related the history of his intrigue with the “Tragic Widow.”
It will be remembered that the strongest point for the prosecution was that Madame Steinheil had murdered her husband in order to be free to marry “the rich châtelain, M. Borderel.” In a slow, solemn voice, M. Borderel stated: “Yes; Madame Steinheil did mention marriage to me, but I said it was impossible. I adored my late wife, I adore my children, and I felt I could not give them a step-mother; and Madame Steinheil fully understood that my decision was irrevocable. Therefore the assumption of the prosecution that Madame Steinheil murdered her husband in order to become my wife, is unwarrantable.” Here M. Borderel broke down. “I loved her. I was a widower. I was free. In becoming her lover, I behaved no more wrongly than thousands of my fellow-countrymen. It is a base lie that I ever suspected her of being guilty of that awful murder. On the morning after the crime, I was full of the deepest pity for her; and when she was accused in the newspapers I passionately told everyone she was innocent.” Up sprang Maître Aubin, counsel for the defence, with the cry: “Do you still believe her innocent?” And loudly, vigorously, whole-heartedly rang forth the answer: “With all my soul, with all my heart, upon my conscience.”
Even M. de Valles was moved by M. Borderel’s emotion, sorrow, chivalry. The disclosure of the “rich châtelain’s” _liaison_ with the “Tragic Widow” caused such a scandal in the Ardennes that M. Borderel had to sell his estate; and he, too, has been persecuted continuously by Yellow photographers and journalists. Equally chivalrous was the evidence of Comte d’Arlon (to whose house Madame Steinheil was removed after the night of the murder), of M. Martin (a State official), and of other gentlemen who had been (platonic) friends of the “Tragic Widow.” Then, more chivalry from M. Pouce, an officer in the detective police. “I have been one of the detectives in charge of the Steinheil affair,” he cried. “But I have always believed in the innocence of Madame Steinheil. Had she told me she was guilty, I should not have believed her. She is innocent.” And finally, exuberant, fantastic chivalry on the part of a young man named René Collard: who, to the stupefaction of the Court, walked up to the Bench and cried: “Madame Steinheil is innocent. I myself am the red-headed woman who helped to commit the double murder.” M. de Valles then wiped his brow with his huge handkerchief, rapped on the silver inkstand with his paper-cutter, and cried: “Silence”—for the Court was buzzing with excitement. Hesitatingly René Collard (aged perhaps nineteen) related that he had disguised himself as a woman, bought a red wig, broken his way into the Steinheil villa (in the company of two friends), sacked the place, bound and gagged Madame Steinheil, strangled her husband, suffocated her mother. “Take this young man away,” said M. de Valles to a municipal guard, “and lock him up.” Two nights in prison brought young René Collard to his senses. He had seen Madame Steinheil’s photographs in the papers, had fallen in love with her: had resolved to save her at the risk of being guillotined by the awful M. Deibler! Said the examining magistrate: “Little idiot, I shall now send you home in the charge of a policeman, who will deliver you over to your parents.” And so, amorous, over-chivalrous young René Collard was conducted back to a dull, bourgeois flat in the Avenue Clichy, where his father and mother, after calling him a “villain,” a “criminal,” and a “monster,” took him into their arms, and hugged him, and called him “the best and most adorable of sons”; and then sent out Amélie, the only servant, to fetch a cream cake and a bottle of sweet champagne with which to celebrate the return home of the “wicked” but “adorable” Master René.
And now, half-past ten o’clock at night on Saturday, the 13th of November.—I have passed over the address to the jury of M. Trouard-Riolle, the Public Prosecutor—a mere repetition of the judge’s savage cross-examination of the “Tragic Widow” on the first two days of the trial; and I have also passed over Maître Aubin’s long, eloquent speech for the defence. And the last scenes I have now to describe rise up so vividly before me, that I adopt the present tense.
The jury have retired to an upstairs room to consider their verdict. Madame Steinheil, watched by municipal guards, is waiting—deadly pale, green shadows under her blue eyes, exhausted, a wreck—in the “Chambre des Accusés.” And in the stifling Court of Assizes, and in the cold marble corridors of the Palais de Justice, barristers, journalists and a few ornaments of _le Tout Paris_ (who, somehow or other, have at last obtained admittance to the Law Courts) are frantically speculating upon the fate of Madame Steinheil. Most barristers say: “There are no proofs whatsoever. Therefore, acquittal.” The _Tout Paris_ cries: “She should be imprisoned for life.” (And here, in yet another parenthesis, let us suggest that the _Tout Paris’_ mocking, vindictive attitude towards Madame Steinheil is provoked by malevolent jealousy. Madame la Comtesse, lively Pauline Boum, stout Baronne Goldstein cannot forgive the “Tragic Widow” for having been _une femme ultra-chic_—the favourite of the late President Félix Faure. Yet, as we all know in Paris, the life of these ladies is very far from exemplary. How terrifically would our great, kindly, satirical Thackeray have laid bare the true causes of the bitter hostility directed against the “Tragic Widow” by French Vanity Fair!)
Eleven o’clock; half-past eleven; midnight. Twice, so we hear, have M. de Valles and counsel for the prosecution and the defence been summoned to the jurors’ room, to explain certain “points.” The _Tout Paris_, and Henri Rochefort, are jubilant. “When the jury sends for the judge it usually means a conviction,” croaks Rochefort, rubbing his hands, and still sucking his impotent lozenges. We hear, too, that a crowd of thousands has assembled in front of the Palais de Justice; that the boulevards are wild with excitement, and——
“The judge has been summoned a third time to the jurors’ room,” we are told at twenty minutes past twelve.
“Five years’ imprisonment at least,” chuckle the ladies and fatuous gentlemen of _le Tout Paris_.
“Ten years—fifteen—twenty, I hope. She was in the pay of the Dreyfusards, and killed Félix Faure,” mutters Rochefort.
“The Court enters; the Court enters,” cry the ushers and the municipal guards, at half-past twelve.
As the jury files into the box, barristers and journalists mount their benches, and, upon those rickety supports, sway to and fro. “Silence,” shouts M. de Valles, rapping his paper-cutter for the last time. His question to the foreman of the jury is inaudible. But the reply rings out firmly, vigorously:
“Before God and man, upon my honour and conscience, the verdict on every count of the indictment is: Not Guilty.”
For a few seconds, silence. Then a shrill cry (from one of the brown-haired, blue-eyed, very charming lady barristers) of “Acquitted!” And after that, enthusiastic uproar. Rocking and swaying to and fro on their rickety benches, the barristers applaud, cheer, fling their black _képis_ into the air. Up, too, go the caps of their fascinating, brown-haired colleagues, as they cry: “Bravo.” More shouts and bravoes from the journalists. (One of them—an Englishman—cheers so frantically that half-an-hour later his voice is as hoarse as Henri Rochefort’s.) And so the din continues, increases, until the demonstrators suddenly perceive the dock is empty. Again, for a second or two, silence, followed by exclamations of astonishment, alarm. M. de Valles, the two assistant judges, and the jurors lean forward. Maître Aubin looks anxious. Where is the “Tragic Widow”? Is she ill? Is she——? But at last the small door at the back of the dock opens, and Madame Steinheil, livid, held by either arm by a municipal guard, staggers forward. She has not yet heard the verdict, but the renewed wild cheering (which drowns the judge’s voice as he addresses her) tells her what it is. Dazed, half-fainting in the doorway, she looks around the Court. For the first time throughout the ten days’ trial she smiles—heavens, the relief, the gratitude, the softness of that smile! And then amidst shouts of “Vive Madame Steinheil,” and of “Vive la Justice,” the “Tragic Widow” falls unconscious into the arms of the _Gardes Municipaux_ and is carried out backwards through the narrow doorway of the dock.
Paris, too, demonstrates excitedly. Cheers are given by the vast crowd assembled outside the Law Courts for Madame Steinheil, Maître Aubin and the jury. M. Trouard-Riolle, the public prosecutor, leaves the Palais de Justice by a side door, followed by Henri Rochefort, yellower than ever in the face, his eyes blazing with vindictive fury. Almost encircling the Palais are the 60 and 90 h.p. motors of the Yellow Reporters, still bent on pursuing and persecuting the “Tragic Widow.” But she evades them; passes what remains of the night in the Hotel Terminus; speeds off in an automobile to a doctor’s private nursing-home at Vésinet next morning.
Acquitted, yes; but by no means rehabilitated, far less left in peace. Outside the nursing-home at Vésinet, behold rows of motor cars, packs of Yellow Reporters and photographers. A din in this usually tranquil country place; a din, too, outside the Impasse Ronsin Villa, and in front of the Bellevue Villa, where inquisitive Parisians jest, and laugh, and point and stare at the shuttered windows. Over those “five o’clock’s” of pale tea, port and sugared cakes, _le Tout Paris_ declares that Madame Steinheil was acquitted by order of the Government. In the _Patrie_, Henri Rochefort still calls her the “Black Panther,” and, alluding once again to the death of Félix Faure, bids President Fallières to beware of her. And on the boulevards, swarms of _camelots_ thrust under one’s eyes “picture post cards” of Mariette Wolff; of huge, bloated Alexandre; of mild Mr Burlingham; of chivalrous Count d’Arlon; of M. Borderel; of Mademoiselle Marthe Steinheil; and of the “Tragic Widow.”
And the bourgeoisie?
“Acquitted, yes; but the Impasse Ronsin crime, committed eighteen months ago, remains a mystery,” says a Parisian angrily to me. “The trial has elucidated nothing: but it has cost enormous sums.” And then, as he is a thrifty, rather parsimonious little bourgeois, the speaker adds indignantly: “As Madame Steinheil has won, it is the Treasury, in other words the unfortunate taxpayer, myself, for instance, who will have to put his hand in his pocket, and settle the bill.”
[5] 1909.
XII
THE LATE JULES GUÉRIN AND THE DEFENCE OF FORT CHABROL
The month of May, 1899—how long ago it seems!
At that time, up at Montmartre, in a large house, overlooking a garden, resided M. Jules Guérin, most savage of Anti-Dreyfusards, and chief of the Anti-Semitic party.
A fine house, but an unlovely garden. A gaunt tree or two; four or five gritty, stony flower-beds; in a corner, a dried-up, dilapidated old well. But this waste of a garden suited M. Guérin’s purposes,—which were sinister.
“If my enemies attack me here, I shall shoot them dead and bury them beneath this very window—by that tree, in that flower-bed.”
“Oh!” I expostulated.
“Or I shall throw their infamous bodies into that well,” continued M. Guérin, again pointing out of the window. “I am prepared; I am ready. You see this gun? Then look at those revolvers. All are loaded.”
A long, highly polished gun rested in a corner at M. Guérin’s elbow. Curiously then I glanced at a collection of revolvers that bristled murderously on the wall, and next at Jules Guérin, a powerfully built man, with massive shoulders, a square chin, lurid green eyes, a fierce moustache, and a formidable block of a head on which a soft grey hat of enormous dimensions was tilted jauntily on one side. Thus, although he sat in his study before a vast, business-like writing-table, Jules Guérin wore his hat, or rather his sombrero, and also an overcoat; but then (as he explained) he might be called out at any moment to take part in a political brawl, or to chastise a journalist, or to arrange a duel—even to dig the grave of an enemy; and so was dressed ready to sally forth anywhere, and with ferocious designs upon anyone, at the shortest notice. Vehemently, he puffed at a cigarette. Now and again he pulled at his fierce moustache. As he spoke he gesticulated, thumped the writing-table savagely, and, when he thumped, the ink-bottles and penholders leapt and danced, and the gun in the corner trembled.
“Downstairs I have twenty clerks and assistants. All are armed with revolvers; all are devoted; and thus my enemies are their enemies. And so if the brigands attack us, into the earth with them, or into the well, or into——”
“But who are these enemies?” I interrupted. “These brigands?”
“The Government—Lépine, Chief of the Police—Loubet, President of the Republic—a hundred other traitors and assassins,” cried M. Guérin. “But the garden is waiting for them. I desire that this garden shall be their cemetery.”
Of course, an impossible ambition. But so incoherent, so chaotic was the state of mind of the Anti-Semites fourteen years ago, that I refrained from suggesting that it was highly improbable President Loubet or his Ministers would invade M. Guérin’s bit of waste ground up there in the rue Condorcet. Nor was my host a man to stand ridicule. A flippant word from me, and he would have shown me the door. So I listened patiently to his wild, savage denunciations of the Jews—of Captain Dreyfus in particular, who was lying (burnt up with fever, broken and battered in everything except determination) in his cell on the Devil’s Island; whilst here, in Paris, the Cour de Cassation was deliberating whether there was sufficient “new” evidence to justify the prisoner being brought back to France and given a new trial. Rumours were flying about to the effect that the Court had already made up its mind to order the revision. Thus, fury of the Anti-Dreyfusards; frenzy of the Anti-Semites, and, in their newspapers, the statements that the Cour de Cassation had been “bought” by the Jews; that the Jews, being the masters of France, had “sold” the country to Germany; and that, therefore, the only thing to do with the Jews was to hang them on the lamp-posts of Paris. Particularly bloodthirsty and barbarous was M. Guérin’s weekly journal, _L’Anti-Juif_, which stood on the floor, in three or four stacks, of this extraordinary study. In it were published the name and address of every Jewish tradesman in Paris. Each column was headed with exhortation: “Français, N’achetez Rien Aux Juifs.” Then, hideous cartoons depicting the flight of the Jews along the boulevards and their panic and agony—and their massacre.